1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates access authorization in a network. More particularly, it relates to building and exchanging encrypted passwords between a client and a server.
2. Background Art
TCP/IP Telnet is an application that presents a terminal to a user. Normally, a user is required to sign-on to the Telnet application with a user name and a password. The sign-on will only proceed if a valid password has been received. Thus, the password is critical to gaining access to system functions and objects.
Many Telnet clients connect to a Telnet server and send both user name and password information in clear-text form. This means system security can be compromised by any tool that can read TCP/IP traffic which allows someone to detect the user name and password. Clear text passwords can be used by unscrupulous hackers to sign-on to a system to which they would not normally have access.
On the other hand, if the password were encrypted, then the Telnet server could use system functions to validate an encrypted password. An encrypted password is no good to a hacker, because an encrypted password is built dynamically using seeds and the real password. The real password is never sent over the TCP/IP network by the client. The real password is never seen by a hacker, and by the time a hacker sees the encrypted password it is no longer valid inasmuch as the real client will have already signed-on and subsequently invalidated the encrypted password.
Current Telnet design for TCP/IP networks is based upon the Internet standard RFC 854 Telnet Protocol Specification, among many others. Few of these RFCs provide a method to allow secure exchange of password information between client and server. With the explosion in Internet usage and associated privacy issues, a secure method to protect the user password from being sent across the Internet in unencrypted form is a critical issue for many businesses.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved system and method for building and exchanging encrypted passwords.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a system and method usable within a TCP/IP Telnet application for building and exchanging encrypted passwords.
It is a further object of the invention to enable encryption by way of RFC 1572 negotiations.